Germany April 2021 Electric Car Sales and PHEV Sales: The Best-Selling Electric Car Is (Again) a Car You Can’t Order

The little Volkswagen e-Up regains the title after narrowly losing to the Tesla Model 3 last month.

Volkswagen e-Up. Photo: VW

The long-awaited “price parity” between electric and ICE cars is already here… if you compare cars from different markets. In China, a sedan called the Venucia D60EV costs a bit more than $21k (that includes some subsidy). It would be a competitor to the similarly sized and gasoline-powered Nissan Sentra in the US market — except the Chinese-built car is fully electric and sports a 58 kWh battery. Want an example not involving China? The Chevrolet Bolt is aparently still buyable for $27k or less. And how much does the new Opel Crossland, a similarly sized ICE car, cost in Germany? Over $27k, and that’s the cheapest version, at least among those with at least 100 hp of power output.[¹]

But another, heavily subsidized (so, not real) kind of price parity between ICE cars and EVs can also be observed, one that exists in markets with strong government intervention. This is what happened in Germany with the Volkswagen Up — a very small city car.

Volkswagen conceived this model as a no-frills, basic vehicle, a true “people’s car”; assembly quality was apparently good, but the vehicle initially had drum brakes in the rear as a result of tight budgeting. And then, an electric version became available, first with a very small battery, then upgraded to a bit more sensible one with 32.3 kWh of net capacity.

(Note: the current electric version of the Volkswagen Up was, or is, also sold under the Skoda and Seat brands; these cars are referred to as Volkswagen Group’s electric triplets.)

And then, Germany introduced huge subsidies for EVs — up to $11k for purely electric models. The electric version of the Volkswagen Up became a direct competitor to gasoline-powered city cars. Orders skyrocketed.[²][³]

And the production rate at Volkswagen’s plant in Bratislava (they are not making that car in Germany), where the car was manufactured alongside its Skoda- and Seat-branded relatives, was nowhere near the demand.

You cannot order the car anymore, at least in Germany. But, as a result of orders on the backlog being fulfilled, the car is the best-selling EV (counting both all-electrics and PHEVs) in the country, both in April and year-to-date.

Overall, 22.1% of passenger cars and SUVs sold in April were plug-in electric. All-electrics were 10.4% and PHEVs were 11.8%.

Top 10, all-electrics (April):

1. Volkswagen e-Up (2604 units)
2. Volkswagen ID.3 (2264 units)
3. Smart EQ Fortwo (1652 units)
4. Hyundai Kona Electric (1574 units)
5. Volkswagen ID.4 (1446 units)
6. Renault Zoe (1268 units)
7. Opel Corsa-e (1106 units)
8. BMW i3 BEV (964 units)
9. Skoda Enyaq (845 units)
10. Peugeot e-208 (806 units)

Volkswagen ID.3 (2nd place among all-electrics). The version shown here, the ID.3 Pro S, has 77 kWh of net battery capacity. Photo: VW

Top 10, PHEVs (April):

1. Mercedes GLC PHEV (1665 units)
2. Seat Leon PHEV (1373 units)
3. Mercedes A-Class PHEV (1316 units)
4. Volkswagen Golf PHEV (1221 units)
5. Volkswagen Passat PHEV (1206 units)
6. Ford Kuga PHEV (1196 units)
7. BMW 3 Series PHEV (914 units)
8. BMW X1 PHEV (906 units)
9. Audi A6 PHEV (880 units)
10. Mercedes CLA PHEV (868 units)

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Source: KBA (1),(2),(3) (see “Zum Herunterladen”)